Grab the Lapels

The Mist by Stephen King

I’m not a huge Stephen King fan, as many are who read his novels. In fact, many of his movies came out when I was a kid and religiously rented 5 horror movies for 5 nights for $5 with my bestie, Andrea. We’d also order 12 coney dogs from a place called Pixie and spent the weekend largely unsupervised. I loved the 90s! However, just recently I’ve read a few King novels for no reason that I can think of. I mean, he’s prolific, so why not? Maybe that’s my thinking…

I did watch the 2007 film The Mist a few years ago. It has great special effects, a terrifying fundamentalist Christian, some illogical antagonists who choose the wrong thing at every turn, and a devastating ending that everyone remembers. The Stephen King book on which it was based was under 200 pages, which I didn’t know King was capable of.

We start with David and his wife and son. A massive, wild storm has passed through and knocked down trees and power lines, scaring the small family as they huddled in the bed in their basement to ride it out. The next morning, David and his five-year-old son head to the grocery store for supplies. As soon as they are in, a strange mist fills the air, preventing shoppers from even seeing out the giant wall of glass at the front of the store.

Before long, everyone is aware that something in the mist is dangerous, but they cannot see what. Before we see what’s out there, it’s hard to picture because King writes like he hasn’t left the house in his entire life. For instance, “…there was a long, drawn-out Aaaaa-rooooooo! that caused people to turn toward the blackness with frightened, searching faces. It was the sort of sound you’d imagine a bull alligator might make in a swamp.” I’ve never heard of an alligator baying like a silly dog let out at midnight to pee, but if you have, please tell me in the comments. The rest of the story proceeds like many scary stories: asking who the real monsters are, the things that go bump in the, erm, mist, or the people and how they behave when civilized behavior breaks down?

Although The Mist is short, once again, King includes too many characters. I could only tell a few apart, so when they start getting picked off after doubters head out into the mist, their deaths had no effect on me. Our protagonist, David, is hard to like. He falls into that stereotype of a man who chugs a beer to feel better when something hard happens, but then he uses some odd academic vocab choices like, “Whatever the concatenation was, it was coming my way.” David managers to sleep with a woman in the store despite professing to love his wife and wanting to get home to her. King didn’t even set up a rocky marriage, which would have been a motive for cheating at least.

The scariest person in the film, the Old Testament doomsdayer, sounded more like a person who needed medication and a sandwich in the novella. She both shouted Biblical passages to explain why there were monsters in the mist, but she was known in the community for creating potions and being all around witchy. Because I couldn’t get a grasp on her personality, she didn’t scare me in the book. The same character dug deep and poked me in my most vulnerable places in the film.

Overall, King’s novella wasn’t my favorite. Limiting the POV to David prevented the novella from having a richness of characters. David himself wasn’t that interesting, nor was he a hero. We do know he survives, however, because the story is told from the future. He thinks things like, “I could not tell then and do not know any better now if he believed in what he was doing or not. I think, deep down, that he knew what was going to happen.” If you’re looking for some cosmic sci-fi horror, go ahead and watch the film instead.

28 comments

    • Me too! It’s such a visual story that it just doesn’t really work well when it’s internal and from one guy’s point of view. I will say the other book to movie that people argue about, saying the movie is far superior, is Jaws. I disagree with that one. I think the book and the movie have different objectives, and both are great. I might also argue that Silence Of The Lambs is better as a film than a book. They’re quite similar, but the actors really sell it.

      Like

      Reply

      • Oh, and another couple of books and movies that people disagree about are The Princess Bride and To Kill a Mockingbird. I am firmly in the “book is better” camp on both of those, mostly because so many people have never read the book and it is a different experience, especially with the meta aspects of The Princess Bride. I once taught it in a fantasy lit class and wrote to the publisher, as instructed, for the reunion scene. What I got, of course, is a two-page letter explaining why the reunion scene couldn’t be written!

        Like

        Reply

        • The novelization of the princess bride is actually a bit of a downer from what I remember reading years and years ago. It feels like that’s kind of the point, that it lacked the typical fairy tale structure where everything ends up wonderfully.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  3. Being prolific is almost always a reason for me to avoid authors. I like my authors to spend years thinking, not bent over a typewriter pumping’ em out. You know horror and I don’t get on, not even when it’s pretending to be SF. And poorly written horror as this seems to be doesn’t even have the excuse, which Sf has, of trying to predict the future.

    Like

    Reply

    • I’m not sure I agree that cosmic sci-fi tries to predict the future, but I see what you mean. The good stuff does, by looking at what’s happening now and imagining a later. I do think there are some people who bang away because they are full of ideas, so you do get some misses as a result, but I admire the creative impulse and drive. King has a pretty mixed fan base anymore because some of his stuff is different in a new way (such as writing more diverse casts of characters or obviously leaning left, either in his fiction or on Twitter), and I always enjoy a shit-stirrer making a fuss for good.

      Like

      Reply

  5. I’m familiar with this story though I’ve never read the book or seen the movie. King does have some strong short stories so I could see him doing well with a more novella length, though this doesn’t sound like it.

    Like

    Reply

  6. The movie sounds better for sure haha. Also, super annoyed that David sleeps with a woman in the supermarket while they are trapped there – what is happening to his poor wife at home alone??? ugh men.

    Like

    Reply

  7. Wow, under 200 pages? Maybe I should read it while waiting for my son to finish “It,” so I can read it afterward. I like all the movies based on his books, but the only book of his I’ve read is “It,” which I read back in college. That’s why I want to read it again and then read “The Stand,” which I’ve heard is his best.

    Like

    Reply

  8. Ive only tried three titles by King so far and have a list of ones to check out next. I’m sorry to hear that this didn’t really work for you. Its unusual to find a case where the movie is preferable to the book (although I had the same experience with The Lovely Bones). Ive never seen the adaptation but I do know how it ends as my dad saw it recently and mentioned it. The random cheating in here sounds like a rather odd inclusion 🤔

    Like

    Reply

    • I can’t tell why Stephen King has so many of his male characters cheat. Based on everything I see on the internet, he’s never cheated on his wife. Maybe it’s just the idea that that’s what a piece of shit person from his generation does. Either way, yeah, the film ending is epic and everyone talks about it, so I’m glad your dad warned you. Which three King books have you read? I feel like he goes through eras. Is that a Taylor Swift thing? I don’t know anything about Taylor Swift except shake it off.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Insert 2 Cents Here: